Ken Berwitz

Have you ever actually heard one of keith olbermann's "special comments"?  If not, I thought you might be interested in just how, er, uplifting they are.

Well, all you have to do is click here, and you'll be able to either read, or view the every word.  I suggest fastening your seat belts before you do so....and having plenty of antacids at hand.

(I am hoping you are either reading or viewing the special comment right now.  Tick tock tick tock tick tock.................................................)

So, are you finished?  Is that about 11 or 12 minutes of primal therapy or what?

Try counting up the personal insults, then the attacks on groups and entities.  It is dizzying.

In olbermann's latest expedition through Venomville, his bogeymen include Republicans en masse (as always), Joe Lieberman (Independent/Democrat), Chuck Grassley (Republican) Jim Demint (Republican) Max Baucus (Democrat) and Ben Nelson (Democrat).  In addition, Barack Obama and Harry Reid are positioned as helpless, feckless dupes.  And I'm sure I've left out a couple of others.  In the world of olbermann, the only good people are hard-leftists.

Lieberman in particular, is called a piqued, vengeful betrayer, a sellout, someone who has lost part of his sanity, who has sold hundreds of thousands into pain, fear, privation and slavery for money, is bought and sold by the insurance lobby, and is a senatorial prostitute/streetwalker. 

Funny, I thought that all he did was petition for what he wanted in the bill.  Just like every other senator.  The only reason he is pivotal is that almost everyone else seems to have a settled position.  Who does olberman blame for that? Lieberman?

I wonder if olbermann has thought for one moment about the fact that, as people know more and more about this legislation, fewer and fewer want it.  If it were good legislation and did what he claims, wouldn't that trend be moving in the opposite direction?

Illustratively, in the most recent poll (NBC/WSJ),  there are four choices - it is a good idea, a bad idea,  no opinion and not sure.  In April 33% said good idea, 26% said bad idea, and 41% said no opinion or unsure (rounded to the nearest percent).  Now?  32% say it is a good idea, 47% say bad idea and 21% are not sure.  That is a big, big move to the negative side.

Did this happen because the media have pounded us with negative stories about health care and driven down public sentiment?  Absolutely not.  The exact opposite is true:  most mainstream media have been, and remain, strongly supportive of this legislation. 

No, the reason is a realization by more and more people that, with all its warts (and there are plenty of them), they prefer our current system to the monstrosity being proposed.  Why?  I'm almost certain that a lot of it is because they flat-out do not believe what this administration is telling them about it.

I think they disbelieve that it will result in actual competition - not with government simultaneously running part of it and in charge of setting the rules for everyone else.  That doesn't compute;

I think they disbelieve that if you add 30 - 45 million people, with a disproportionate percentage of them non-payers and high risks, it could possibly result in better services and lower prices.  That is an obvious contradiction in terms.

And, perhaps most importantly, I think that the so-called "stimulus package" has turned them away.  When this legislation was enacted, we were told it would cap unemployment at 8%.  But in the 10 months it has been on the books, unemployment has risen to over 10% - that's a loss of about 3,500,000 jobs.  Yet, incredibly, the administration is looking us in the eye and saying that it has created or saved seven figures worth of jobs.  Maybe olbermann believes this, but it is pretty clear not many others do.  I suspect most folks feel it is self-evident BS.  And they're 100% right.

So, it could be reasoned, if the previous major piece of legislation is a demonstrable failure, and the administration is lying about it to our faces, why would anyone think that same administration will be any more successful, or honest, about health care?

This is the perspective that never quite gets onto the radar with olbermann.  It's much easier hurling bilious personal insults.

Maybe his next special comment can be about vicious, nasty, offensive louts who host low-rated cable news shows.  At least we'll be sure he knows something about the subject.